The present invention relates generally to agricultural apparatus, and more particularly to apparatus for singling out individual seeds from a liquid or gelatinous suspension of seeds and for reintroducing the selected seeds uniformly spaced into a stream of a carrier fluid.
There are significant advantages to planting crops with pregerminated or sprouted seeds. In addition to reduced crop emergence time, this practice enables the germination of seeds in a more ideal environment than that frequently found in the soil and the planting of only viable seeds, which increases crop uniformity and improves crop quality and yield. Moreover, germination may be initiated before the time the seeds can ordinarily be planted. This enables the crop growing season to be shortened, which reduces field crop risks and allows earlier marketing for better prices.
Pregerminated seeds tend to be more fragile than seeds which have not sprouted, and sprouted seeds must be handled more carefully to minimize damage to them. Accordingly, many sprouted seeds are put into the ground manually or using a hand-feed planting machine. The handling and planting of sprouted seeds may be facilitated by dispersing the seeds in a fluid, such as a gelatinous material, which protects the seed radicals and serves as a carrier for dispersing the seeds into the soil. Since it is desirable to plant seeds regularly spaced in rows or in uniform volumes as for clump planting of seeds, attempts have been made to mix the seeds uniformly in the gelatinous carrier vehicle and to disperse the mixture regularly in drilled rows or in uniform volumes using a planting machine. Such techniques have not been satisfactory for providing a uniform spacing of seeds in a row or for providing uniform numbers of clumped seeds. This has been due in part to the difficulty in achieving a uniform distribution of the seeds in the gelatinous carrier vehicle.
It is desirable to provide apparatus in which such disadvantages are avoided and which enables the dispersion of seeds into a carrier or transfer fluid in a controlled manner, and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.